Category Archives: Famous People & Pens

Mark Twain’s Conklin Crescent

By on May 27, 2024
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Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, owned this house with his wife Livy in Hartford, Conn.

Way back in 2013 I wrote a post called “Was Mark Twain the First Pen Pitchman?“. It was the oft repeated story about how author Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, advertised his support for the Conklin Crescent back in 1903. Clemens is best remembered for his novels “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” Plus there is the more relevant-than-it-has-been-in 100 years “The Gilded Age.”

I wouldn’t normally revisit an old post, but I just went to the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Conn. It is a beautiful house that he had custom built with his wife Livy (Olivia). Although Clemens was a noted writer and wit when they married in 1870, Olivia was the source of their wealth–the daughter of a prominent timber and coal baron. Their house in Hartford was built soon after their marriage. Remarkably, the young man who painted their foyer was none other than Louis Comfort Tiffany!

Clemens would write both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in that house.

At the bottom of the photo you can see the Conklin Crescent fountain pen that Mark Twain called his “profanity saver.” Above it to the right is his inkwell.

Among the many artifacts on display was the great author’s actual Conklin Crescent fountain pen. I am not sure what model it is. Yet, I was a bit appalled by its condition. Chunks of black hard rubber were missing from the barrel threads. It definitely isn’t in a condition to be restored to working order and safely used. Nevertheless, it was great to see the actual pen that is so frequently written about and rarely photographed.

If you find yourself in Connecticut, it is worth the visit to this museum. The house is very well preserved, and I certainly learned a ton about the author and his family.

Plus, his next door neighbor was Harriet Beecher Stowe who famously wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a critical look at American slavery that helped to promote the abolition movement. Her house is now a museum you can explore, too!

Resurrecting Vintage Pen Brands

By on June 24, 2023
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When I first started ThePenMarket.com, I also worked part-time at a brick-and-mortar pen shop in a mall. I was far more familiar with vintage pens than modern, and I was very excited to see that the Conklin Pen Company had been brought back to life at around the same time.

I had no idea who was behind the new Conklin, but I was thrilled to see the return of newer and bigger Crescent pens that were much more comfortable to hold and use than the often tiny originals.

Lo and behold, roughly 20 years later, a Facebook post brought me in contact with not only the genius behind the resurrection of Conklin, BUT also Esterbrook, LeBoeuf and the ubiquitous pen of office workers everywhere in the 1990s—Sensa! He also was a founding member of the major American pen distributor called Kenro Industries in 1993!

Robert Rosenberg is the inspired entrepreneur who has resurrected the vintage pen brands of Conklin, Esterbrook, LeBoeuf and the modern brand Sensa!

His name is Robert Rosenberg, and he has kindly agreed to talk with us here at ThePenMarket.com to tell us a little about his adventure in pens and his products moving forward.

ThePenMarket: Welcome to our Drippy Musings! It is an honor to be able to talk with you about your impressive successes bringing back beloved pen brands of yesteryear. Please tell us a little about how you got into pens.

Robert Rosenberg: My father was in pens. I grew up in the pen industry. When I was a little boy, my grandfather became the exclusive U.S. distributor of Pilot pens. My father joined him. At the time, Pilot had only one pen: the Razor Point. It became a great success. [Pilot eventually broke their distribution contract, and his dad worked out a deal where he remained a consultant and helped establish Pilot as a much larger company in the U.S. His father also was the first to help bring Sailor pens to the U.S. in the early 1980s] 

My father was now in the pen industry, and he formed another company to distribute Waterman pens in the U.S. [At the time Waterman was an independently owned French company, not a part of Newell-Rubbermaid, as it is today.] After their initial success, Waterman then tried to set up its own company in the U.S. and Dad became the president of that subsidiary in the United States in 1986. 

TPM: Did you have any interest in vintage pens brands when you were younger? 

RR: My father and I used to go to flea markets as a kid. We’d go to flea markets to look for old Waterman pens. We bought a lot of them.

TPM: How did you come up with the idea to first bring back Conklin?

RR: I was very familiar with the pen business when I decided to go to law school. I took a course about trademarks. And it taught the law regarding what you do with abandoned trademarks. I wondered if there were any pen brands that fell off the face of the earth. I did the research, and I found Conklin.

TPM: How do you bring back a dead company? Do you have to pay someone for the rights to it? Who would you even pay?

RR: In trademark law, if there is brand that is no longer around any more and a certain amount of time has passed, you can file a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. It is a long process and it doesn’t always work. It isn’t easy, but I was able to acquire the rights to Conklin. 

This modern Conklin Nozac was one of the very first pens Rosenberg released with help from Visconti.

TPM: I love how you redeveloped a successful Nozac filler and the Crescent filler. I, honestly, think that was the key Conklin’s incredible success. How did you manage to go retro when the world was locked into cartridge and converters?

RR: That was probably the smartest thing I did, and it was not totally my idea. I worked with Dante Del Vecchio at Visconti. He was very eager to work with me. We worked out a deal and he made it for us. 

TPM: With Conklin seemingly really roaring along, why did you sell the company?

RR: I didn’t want to sell the company. My father had come on as a partner. And we ran it; we built it. Then one morning I found him at my desk. He had a brain hemorrhage and passed away. We sold it to YAFA due to estate issues that arose from my father’s passing.

TPM: In 2015, you breathed fresh life into Esterbrook. What inspired you to go back and revive that brand?

RR: I had been looking at that brand for a number of years. It was still trademarked by somebody, and I was keeping my eye on it for a long time. Eventually the trademark had been cancelled. I wasn’t even aware of how big the history of the company was. I think I made some missteps in the beginning. We had some backlash from the pen community. [The pen community wanted the return of its J-model pens from the early ’50s and the original replaceable screw-in Esterbrook nibs. But, as Mr. Rosenberg pointed out, even if Esterbrook had not gone out of business, they wouldn’t be still making pens just as they did 70 years ago.] We did have some nice pens. I had worked with Kenro for a year really getting Esterbrook running, again, and then I eventually sold it to them.

The Conklin Mark Twain was the first really big hit Rosenberg’s resurrection of Conklin had. It was based on the original pen from the late 19th century. The old company had paid the author Mark Twain to be its first spokesman.

TPM: Clearly, you weren’t done, yet, bringing back the iconic LeBoeuf in 2019. How did that come about. Unlike the other two brands, which had died out decades earlier, hadn’t there already been an attempt to bring back LeBoeuf in the 1980s or ’90s? I have one of their “Greg Norman” pens on my website.

RR: Yes. They did a horrible job. I remember when LeBoeuf was brought back. I shook my head at the time, and I didn’t understand what they were doing. They had nice boxes, but that was it.

At the time I also got Sensa. After the company’s roaring success in the 1990s, Newell-Rubbermaid had bought it for $25 million. The reason that they bought it was for the patents on the grips. It never worked out for them, and they just dropped it and let it go. It is crazy. They had a huge following. We still get calls from people to replace their grips. [The original Sensa Plasmium grips started decomposing, leaking and getting sticky.] 

The grips are very tricky to make. We spent a lot of time to get the Plasmium grip just right so it won’t have those problems as before. However, we had to redesign the pen to make these new grips work better, which is why we can’t replace the grips on the old pens.

TPM: For readers who don’t know this, LeBoeuf was founded in 1919 in Springfield, Mass. It was the very first pen company to manufacture fountain pens made of celluloid. Robert, you’ve brought back some beautiful recreations of some of those early designs in modern acrylic pens. Are there plans to keep bringing back more of those stunning early designs?

RR: Yes. The thing with LeBoeuf is that they didn’t have a lot of different models. They had a brief history. They had this Pilgrim, and we are going to continue with that. We do have some other designs and productions. We’ve sort of made a name for ourselves with our limited editions. We just came out with a Winston Churchill this week, and we’ve almost already sold out of it. We’ve got new releases planned through 2025. People have really gotten into the limited editions and themes. Edgar Allen Poe was probably our best seller. Next month we have a Herman Melville. It is a nice business model.

TPM: Given how vintage filling systems really seemed to be key to the success of reviving Conklin, is there any hope for the classic sleeve fillers once used by LeBoeuf? In truth they were basically very simple aerometric fillers under the sleeve.

RR: We’re trying. We’re working on some designs now. We do have some other vintage inspired pens that we are working on. They will be out in 2024.

TPM: How about a solid-gold nib?

RR: We tend to have stayed away from the gold because of the pricing.

TPM: What can we pen devotees expect from you in the future?

RR: We are working on a new Sensa fountain pen. I think it will be more acceptable to fountain pen users.

TPM: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today! Best of luck in all of your inky endeavors. To see more about modern LeBoeuf or Sensa, please go to their websites:

LeBoeuf

Sensa

The Pens that Ended WWII: Italy

By on January 8, 2020
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Did you know that toys paid for the pen that ended WWII with Italy?

For several years, with the help of many readers, I have written about the pens that ended World War II. After solving several mysteries about the pens that ended the war with Germany, I thought this fun and fact-filled segment had come to an end.

Fabulous readers Francis Turner, Tom C., Gary C. and Mike C convinced me otherwise. All four of these men are unrelated and each reached out to me independently of one another and very close to the same time.

Yes, I had discussed the surrenders of Japan and Germany, but I had left out the critical surrender of Italy and its new-forged partnership with the Allies.

After all of the other mysteries were solved, I never would have guessed that toys would be at the center of the story about the pen that ended the war in Italy.

Toys?! Yes, toys.

Louis Marx’s family sits with several of the generals who won WWII. Many of the young boys in the photo were named for after a general. Photo courtesy of Francis Turner.

Enter Louis Marx. To the best of my research, he had nothing to do with the comical Marx Brothers. Instead, Louis Marx and his brother David were toy makers in New York City, when they opened their own company in 1919. Their particular talent in the early days was taking the ideas of current childrens’ toys and making them better, more durable and cheaply than their competitors. They also were better marketers. Although they did not invent the yo-yo, they were the ones initially behind making it world famous in the 1920s. They and their company would go on to invent thousands of other toys, famously including Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots and my absolute favorite toy as a little boy: the Big Wheel.

Marx Toys was one of the few companies to thrive during the Great Depression, and along the way Louis happened to become very close friends with the men who would go on to save the world from fascism. Yes, his close friends included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Walter Bedell “Beetle” Smith, Omar Bradley, George Marshall and Curtis Lemay. Talk about having powerful friends in high places.

Were they really that close as friends? Absolutely. Smith gladly took on the role of godfather to Louis’ first son, and Eisenhower served as godfather to his second son. In fact, eight of the leading Allied generals of the war would volunteer to be the godfathers to 5 of the Marx children.

Much the way Kenneth Parker gave his old buddy Eisenhower Parker 51s to sign the surrender with Germany, Marx gave his buddy Beetle a pen to use for a surrender ceremony. Use it he did, but before we get to that, let’s take a quick look into the life of Gen. Walter Bedell Smith. He remains a fascinating character.

Gen. Walter Bedell Smith signed the armistice with Italy and also the German unconditional surrender. He later became head of the C.I.A.

Best known as Eisenhower’s “hatchet man,” Smith is remembered as Ike’s Chief of Staff at several crucial points during WWII. Although he was often tough as nails, he was far more politically savvy than people gave him credit, and he really embodied much of the American dream rising out of nowhere to become an important figure.

Smith was born in Indianapolis in 1895. He didn’t graduate high school, but he did attend a little college before eventually joining the Indiana National Guard in 1911. He remained in the Guard helping during floods and even as part of the Pancho Villa Campaign on the southern border. He spent 6 long years in the military as a private and then non-commissioned officer until World War I. Given his incomplete education by today’s military standards, he’d have never gotten very far in the ranks, but the Army needed young men with any military experience, and he was promoted to second lieutenant in Europe in 1917. Wounded at the front, Smith recuperated and earned a promotion to first lieutenant, a rank at which he’d remain for another 10 years, as he also furthered his education. After achieving his rank as captain, he’d stick it out 10 more years to make the rank of major in 1939. Then World War II began.

Experience and a swelling Army made his quick promotions to Lieutenant Colonel and “full-bird” Colonel inevitable, but it was his tenacious hard work and talent for organizing and co-ordinating between Allied army units that rocketed him up the ranks to become a 1, then 2 and 3 star general serving as the chief of staff first for Gen. George Marshall and then Eisenhower.

This is the Wahl-Eversharp Skyline pen given to Gen. Smith by his friend Louis Marx that was used to sign the Allied armistice with Italy on Sept. 3, 1943. Like so many other Skylines, its cap sleeve has come loose and is sliding down the cap a little.

In August of 1943, Ike entrusted Smith on a secret mission to negotiate an armistice with Italy, which would then join the Allies against the Nazis. By Sept. 3, they had signed a deal with this Wahl-Eversharp Skyline fountain pen given to him by Louis Marx. Pay close attention to the engraved gold cap sleeve and the engraved plate on the pen box! Tom C., a former accountant to Louis Marx Jr.,  was the first to tell me about this pen, and he would go on to sell it and another important pen to Francis Turner.

Turner is the gentleman who first explained the Marx connection to me. You see, he is the owner of the Marx Toy Museum in West Virginia, near the site of one of the original Marx toy factories. Although the toy museum is no longer in daily operation, you can take a virtual tour online, while many of the physical exhibits are on tour at other museums around the country.

A close-up of the specially engraved cap of the Italian armistice pen.

Turner’s passion for Marx Toys is on par with the most devoted passions for pens that I have ever seen, and it was pens that brought our paths to cross. I cannot thank him enough for many of the photos in this post and the stories that go behind it.

As we learned in previous posts, Kenneth Parker gave Eisenhower Parker 51s to use in the ceremony that brought the unconditional surrender of Germany. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith signed the 4th copy of the German surrender with one of those 51s, and he and Ike chose to give that pen to their close friend Marx! It, too, has a very unusual gold sleeve around the normal cap with its history engraved on it. The pen, itself, is an age-appropriate Vac-filler in Cedar Blue. Its Saks Fifth Avenue presentation box also has an engraved plate with the pen’s history. This is the other pen Turner acquired and shared with me for this story.

This Parker 51 was used in the signing of Germany’s unconditional surrender. It, too, was given to Louis Marx by Gen. Smith.

 

Smith’s own history continued to get more fascinating. After the war, he was promoted to the status of 4-star general. He also remained an Army general while serving as ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 into 1948. Smith continued on as a 4-star general while then also serving as head of the C.I.A. from 1950 into 1953! When Ike was elected president, Smith was chosen to be Under Secretary of State. He didn’t keep that posting for very long, but he continued to help the Eisenhower administration.

Smith passed away from a major heart attack in 1961. His buddy Louis Marx, whose upstart toy company had grown into the biggest in the world by the 1950s, would live until 1982. 

An engraved plate on the box of the Parker 51 used to help end WWII, describes the pen’s special place in history.

I certainly hope you find all of this history as interesting as I do. If anything, my jump down the rabbit hole of WWII pens has taught me is that I am far from finished uncovering the pens of WWII. 

What pens did Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler use to sign their ill-fated agreement? What pens did Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin use to sign their agreements at Yalta? What pens were used to ink the deal tying the U.S. to China’s Chiang Kai-shek? What did Roosevelt sign the Lend Lease Act with? Clearly there are more famous pens in this war. I look forward to uncovering them with you in 2020 and beyond.

James Bond’s Montblanc from Octopussy: The Sequel

By on September 20, 2018
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Two years ago we identified the sterling silver Montblanc 146 used in the 1983 James Bond film “Octopussy.” The film starred Roger Moore, Maud Adams and Louis Jordan…and a certain fountain pen that was modified by Q. The pen in the film holds a very potent acid ANNND a secret listening device.

A sterling silver with a barley design Montblanc 146 fountain pen that was used in the movie Octopussy rests on a table.

This is one of two pens used in the James Bond film “Octopussy.” In the movie the pen holds acid and a secret listening device. More recently, this one looks as if it held blue ink.

Among the pen’s other notable features is that it does not have the traditional Montblanc branded black dome with the 6-point star or snowy mountain top at the top of the pen. Montblanc got credit for the pen, it just seemed weird it branded the pen differently for the movie.

As fate would have it, the current owner of that pen read our blog post recently and sent us a photo of the original pen.

Jeremy F. is the pen’s owner, and he said there were two made for the film—his and one that has since gone missing. (Perhaps they shouldn’t have filled a plastic pen with potent acid.)

Jeremy got it from the one-time head of Dunhill, who got it from someone at Montblanc. He has since had it authenticated by Jens Rösler, grandson of Montblanc’s founder.

Vive la France! The Eisenhower Pen Mystery … Solved!

By on August 23, 2018
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Five year ago I wrote a story about the pens used to end World War II. Two years later, some historians came to add more details to the piece. Through it all one mystery remained…

Geoff Parker took this photo of the actual Parker 51 his grandfather gave to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that was used to sign the armistice with Germany ending World War II in Europe. It is preserved in Abilene, Kan., at the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum.

While visiting the Musee de l’ Armee in Paris of 2010, I spotted a Parker 51 that once belonged to General Dwight D. Eisenhower. At the time, I presumed it was the pen he used while signing Germany’s surrender to the Allies. Several long blog posts later, we know that Eisenhower didn’t want to be in the same room with the Germans and gave his staff several Parker 51s to sign the surrender documents. These 51s were given to him directly by Kenneth Parker, and Eisenhower in turn presumably gave them to Truman, Churchill and Parker as the instruments that ended WWII. We have a picture of the pen he gave Truman that now rests in Eisenhower’s Presidential Library.

Yet…what about that Parker 51 I saw in the museum? Even the museum’s staff wrote me claiming no knowledge of the pen, and I didn’t have the presence of mind in 2010 to get a photo.

Loyal reader Pascal L. found the Parker 51 in the Musee de l’Armee in Paris that I discussed in my earlier blog posts.

Enter my new favorite Frenchman: Pascal L. Pascal read my post, visited the museum and found the pen I saw in the museum’s collection dedicated to the French Resistance! He sent me photos!

The Parker 51 is green (Technically, it is the teal model but it looks green to me and my memory from 8 years ago.) and gold. It is displayed with an autographed photo of Ike that is dedicated: “For the companions of the Liberation.”

The plot thickens!

Look closely at the pen. Pascal was quick to point out that it is an aerometric-filler. Clearly, this pen could not have been at the signing in 1945. This style of Parker 51 wasn’t released until 1949.

Pascal reached out to the museum again and finally solved the mystery! It is really important to note that the pen was in the section dedicated to the French Resistance. This is what Pascal wrote me: “On March 6, 1972, Mrs. [Mamie] Eisenhower asked General Robert L. Schulz, General Eisenhower’s personal assistant from 1947 to 1969 to send the Parker 51 to Chancelier  Claude Hettier de Boislambert. (This man is the creator of the Museum of the Order of Liberation.) The fountain pen has been placed in the collection.”

Thus, the pen was actually given away 3 years after President Eisenhower’s death. The pen doesn’t have the pointed tail of a 1972 Parker 51 and looks as if it could have once been in Ike’s possession, as he was known to have been replete with Parker 51 fountain pens for various giveaways and special presentations.

I want to give a very special merci beaucoup to Pascal L. for all of his very hard work in finally bringing this story to a close with a mystery solved.

Here is a closer look at the Eisenhower Parker 51.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Elementary Gift

By on June 17, 2018
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Most pen fanatics are familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famed author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, having once been an advertising spokesman for the Parker Duofold. However, that was at the end of his life.

This Swan eyedropper was once a gift from mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife to James Holmes during the Christmas of 1910.

Before there was such a thing as a Parker Duofold, one can speculate about what pens he would have used. Well, if what he gave as decadent gifts are any clue, it might have been Swan pens!

As I have said many times before, one of my favorite parts about owning this business is meeting tons of awesome people from around the world. This past week I was contacted by Sharon in the UK, and she had a spectacular pen to share.

Here is the tail imprint on this Swan pen from 1910.

It was a Christmas gift her great grandfather, a coincidentally named James Holmes, received from “Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle” in 1910. It appears to be a rolled gold Swan eyedropper with a hammered finish!

She is having it appraised by a famous auction house in London, but she also was hoping we might be able to come up with a reasonable figure. While I could come up with a reasonable number for such a pen without a famous inscription, I felt pretty confident a pen from the creator of Sherlock Holmes took it to the next level.

Any thoughts, Loyal Readers?

This shows the heavily worn section and nib of this Swan eyedropper given by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Debra Messing Writes with Montegrappa

By on October 18, 2017
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Debra Messing, the TV star best known for her roles on “Will & Grace,” “The Mysteries of Laura” and “The Starter Wife,” turns out to be a fan of fountain pens. She once posted on her Instagram account about one of her favorites being a white and rose gold Montegrappa Fortuna.

She clearly has incredibly good tastes.

Montegrappa pens are Italian works of art. Most of their pens use intricate celluloids that take a full year to cure. Plus, they are decked out with gold and sterling silver trim. Completing each fountain pen is a hand-tuned 18k gold nib.

Now that her hit series “Will & Grace” is slated for a comeback, we thought you might be interested in her favorite pen.

President Trump’s Pen of Choice

By on July 30, 2017
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(DISCLAIMER: This is part of an on-going series of posts and not a political piece intended to stir any ire of pen collectors. Please do not flood the comments section with your love or hatred of the man. It will not be published.)

This week we head to Washington for the DC Pen Show! It will be our first time there, and it is only fitting that we look, once again, into the pens used by our presidents. As we have covered most of the signing instruments of presidents dating back to John F. Kennedy, it is time to look at the pens most used by Donald Trump.

The early days of the Trump administration saw several pens used to sign his initial executive orders.

Six months into the new presidency, it appears Trump has settled on Cross Century pens that are black with gold trim. These are the iconic skinny pens most associated with the Cross brand. Trump appears to use the rollerball version with felt-tipped refills.

Although most of these pens are made in China, Cross is still considered one of the few remaining truly American pen brands. Now that Cross also owns the iconic Sheaffer brand, I had wondered if we might see Sheaffers in the White House.

Alexandre Dumas: The Man & The Pen

By on April 12, 2017
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Alexandre Dumas wrote some of the greatest novels in history. It is difficult not to love “The Three Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”

Alexandre Dumas is my favorite writer of the 19th century. Nobody comes close to his adventures, characters or ability to capture the human condition. If you spend any time with his most famous novels, all of his characters are easily recognizable as people you can identify with in modern times. That is the secret sauce that elevates his writing to a timeless status.

My love of his work started at the age of 13. I picked up “The Count of Monte Cristo” on a bit of a whim. Before I knew it, I was hooked. It was pure literary crack. In spite of its length, I could not put it down. The tragic tale of Edmond Dantes and his need for vengeance is still rivetting. I teach fencing classes to junior high and high school students. Every 4 years or so, as new batches of kids rotate into class, I give them an end-of-the-year gift of a copy, and those who read it…even the 12-year-old girls…all come back grateful for a read that rocks their world as much as any Harry Potter or “Hunger Games” novel. (The highest praise of youth today.)

And honestly, Dumas only gets better with age! If you only read his works as a youth, you NEED to revisit them. Since turning 30 more than a decade ago, I’ve made a concious effort to reread at least one of his novels every year. There is soooo much more depth and realism that I missed my first time through as a teenager.

Here’s a small selection of my books by Alexandre Dumas featuring early translations and modern reprintings.

“The Three Musketeers” take on an almost cartoonish quality in our modern pop culture, but to revisit them, you find a complicated story of love, sex, loyalty, honor, war and true friendship. The musketeers are ordinary men in extra-ordinary circumstances. Clever, hard working, mostly honest (you really can’t trust Aramis much), these are 4 fellows who know how to game the system and make the most of the life of warriors. Dumas first wrote the novel as a serial in newspapers in 1844. It took Paris, and then the world, by storm. He actually followed it up with 4 more books: “Twenty Years After,” “The Vicomte de Bragellone,” “Louise de la Valliere” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.” The last one is my absolute favorite, and its symbolic significance–no spoilers, I promise–completely held me in its grasp. Not only did it fully reveal the truths of all the main characters to me, it really helped me to make better sense of the world around me at the time I first read it. Pretty impressive for a novel that came out 170 years ago in 1847.

A new book of the Musketeer series called “The Red Sphinx” was just rediscovered. It was in serialization when Dumas died in 1870! Technically, it doesn’t have an end, but some of his notes divulge how it was to end. Although I have yet to read it, it is supposed to take place about 20 days after the original “The Three Musketeers” novel ended.

More than this, Dumas wrote 300 books! He also wrote many plays, newspaper, magazine and fictional short stories. Another of his most famous stories is “The Corsican Brothers.” Here nobel twins, who were separated at birth, can feel each other’s nervous systems and emotions from across great distances…eventually learning of their parents tragic murder and uniting to extract revenge.

I own and have read dozens of his lesser known works. Most of them are as good as his biggest hits. The real trick is finding good translations! For me, the tranlator helps to be from the late 19th century or early 20th century. They try to capture the English language of the time period in which Dumas was writing. This builds a rhythm and poetry that Dumas conveyed in the original French. Modern translations fail for me because they try too hard to make it sound like modern, American English language and times. It destroys the cadence of the language and the romance of the 1800s, as well as the eras in which Dumas was writing about.

These are 2 of three volumes that I own of the original source material of “The Three Musketeers.” These are “The Memoirs of D’Artagnan” in an early 20th century translation!

How big a junkie am I? I found an early 20th century translation of the 3-volume biography of the actual 4th musketeer D’Artagnan! I have yet to read it, but I can’t wait. It supposedly gave Dumas the inspiration for writing the adventures of the musketeers in his fictional masterpieces.

Dumas also was a fascinating man, even without his incredible skill as a writer. He was a biracial man born of a white mother and black father in 1802. His father was one of Napoleon’s top generals…until they had a falling out during the Egypt campaign. (Any number of historians thought that Napoleon’s not listening to Gen. Dumas was one of his greater blunders in Egypt.) Although his father died in exile, young Alex got to encounter Napoleon as Napoleon changed horses while beating a hasty retreat from Waterloo.

Alexandre started writing as a young man, primarily for the stage. His early plays were often political and controversial. (France was undergoing several revolutions during his lifetime.) He didn’t really find success until he wrote a play about Henri III. Historical fiction was practically his invention. (Shakespeare mastered it on the stage, but Dumas really developed it into an art form in novels.) With great success, came great loves and travel adventures of his own. Ultimately, no matter how much money he made, he spent far more. He died heavily in debt and fairly poor.

This is a 1996 Mont Blanc Writers Series Alexandre Dumas fountain pen with the wrong signature on the cap and box.

Mont Blanc wisely chose to honor him in 1996 with one of its early limited edition writers series pens. The pen was handsomely trimmed in classical French style accents, such as a fleur de lis on its nib. Collectors especially love this pen because it features a significant mistake on the part of Mont Blanc. The company’s early releases of the pen featured not Alexandre’s signature but the signature of his son, Alexandre Dumas fils, who famously wrote “Camille.” The company scrambled to recall these pens and replace them with the right signature. As such, the wrong signature pens are worth more than most of the other writers series pens.

Farewell, President Obama

By on January 20, 2017
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After faithfully serving the country for 8 years, for better or worse, through thick and through thin, President Barack Obama hands the reins over to Donald Trump today. Judging by the uproar online and everywhere else, it will be a sadder day for some than others.

However, as we put aside politics for our shared love of pens, we noted earlier in his presidency that President Obama was signing bills into law with Cross Townsends. As we have noted the changes in presidential pens from Esterbrooks to Parkers to Cross pens, we to must acknowledge one last change in President Obama’s signing pens.

Some time during his second term we spotted this photo of him using a different Cross pen. These are the Cross Century II ballpoint pens in black lacquer with a sterling silver cap. It is a handsome pen and nicely weighted, while being a little thicker around the middle than the more common Cross Century pens each of us likely has two dozen of rattling around a desk drawer or shoe box.

With that observation, we wish the Obama family well and thank them for their service to our country … while wondering what pens President Donald Trump will use.